In just five years Jesmyn Ward lost five young men in her life—to drugs, accidents, suicide, and the bad luck that can follow people who live in poverty, particularly black men. As she began to write about the experience of living through all that dying, she realized the truth behind the loss—and it took her breath away: Her only brother and her friends died because of who they were and where they were from, and because they lived with a history of racism and economic struggle that fostered drug addiction and the dissolution of family and relationships. Now, in conversation with Vivian Phillips of The Hansberry Project, Ward (author of the National Book Award-winning Salvage The Bones, as well as the new Men We Reaped) revisits the agonizing losses to share stories about her poor community in rural Mississippi, about the men who died—and about herself.
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